Over a three day weekend the other week, I attended an event which meant waking up much earlier than usual. I’m not what they call an “early bird” and each morning it took me a considerable amount of time to escape the grogginess of sleep intertia. It was worth going through for the event, but as I was driving each morning from 7AM, feeling slightly frustrated that it couldn’t have started a little later, it had me thinking, it doesn’t necessarily take much change in our life to make us feel uncomfortable in some way, and when things are going the way we like them to, it can be taken for granted.
I realise the issue I’ve just mentioned is very much a “First World Problem” as it were. As a whole, it didn’t bother me too much, and I certainly didn’t feel the need to express my ever so slight discomfort, but it did make me ponder over the reality of my feelings, because if we experience long periods in our life whereby we’re uninterruptedly contented, then how does that set us up for when things go wrong? How would we react? Would we be proud of how we handled a situation if circumstances didn’t shift in our favour?
Now I don’t always complete one of these posts in a day. Often, a subject will come to mind, I’ll begin to write about it, and if I hit a brick wall, I’ll stop. If some days later I come across a thought or situation that brings it back to mind, I’ll continue writing. I mention this because that’s just what’s happened here. Today has been a particularly long day at work. Our team has been working on the configuration for a new IT system. Part of this includes designing processes to migrate existing content into the new environment, and making sure the end user experience isn’t interupted throughout each step. There’s a lot of moving parts, including some new processes we’ve introduced to make day to day administration easier and more effective. It’s been steady over the last couple of months, and we hit a milestone which enabled us to begin moving devices onto the new system. We were around 3/4 of the way through the deployment process until we came across a problem. I won’t bore you with the details, as you’re probably already feeling a little sleepish from what’s been mentioned so far, but it’s left us a little stuck, and we need to find a solution before it becomes noticeable. Most of the responsibility is on me, as I initiated the migration and applied a lot of the config. We’ll find a solution, but it’s the end of the working day, and so far, we’re not much further.
It’s weighing on my mind. It’s almost guaranteed that it won’t become a major problem. Worst case scenario, we’ll move our devices back onto the previous platform, but despite understanding the logical evidence behind this, I’m still not at peace. The thought is constantly resting in the corner of my mind, reminding me of my persistent unease. This suggests to me how distinguishable logic and emotion are. You can’t use logic to negate emotion, and you can’t fully use emotion to negate logic. Despite trying to use one to convince the other, you’ll always have the one you’re trying to subdue gnaw at your soul.
To illustrate this, imagine a time you’ve been upset by someone, or felt a strong sense of injustice. You’re angry, frustrated. Maybe at the time, you brushed it off. You didn’t want to cause a scene in front of others, but as you walk away, you feel strongly about how you were wronged. This exact scenario happened to me recently. I won’t go into detail, but I felt as though I’d been spoken to in a condescending way, and I’d been accused of not fulfilling a duty when I knew I had. What made matters worse is that my accuser turned around before I had the opportunity to respond. After walking away, I tried to reason on this. I knew that he was just being consciencous; it was an important job. I know this person very well, and I know they didn’t mean anything by it, so I wouldn’t let it get to me. That’s what I attempted to convince myself of; logically it made absolute sense, as I knew it was an extremely minor issue; it wouldn’t affect my life, and it wasn’t worth getting bogged down about. However, it weighed on my mind for hours, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. In my logical mind, I decided it wasn’t worth it, but my emotional mind convinced me otherwise.
On an earlier paragraph, I mentioned how uninterrupted contentment doesn’t challenge us to think about how we would react when we face hardship. But does anyone truly experience the kind of contentment that doesn’t prompt us to think about things from time to time?Perhaps some find that contentment through accepting their challenges; challenges which we face every day. Referencing one of Paul’s letters to the Philippians, he wrote this:
Not that I am saying this because I am in need, for I have learned to be self-sufficient regardless of my circumstances. 12 I know how to be low on provisions and how to have an abundance. In everything and in all circumstances I have learned the secret of both how to be full and how to hunger, both how to have an abundance and how to do without. 13 For all things I have the strength through the one who gives me power.
Philippians 4:11-13
I appreciate that not everyone has a strong belief in the bible, but based on this, it seems reasonable to suggest that if we embrace hardship as an opportunity for change and growth, we’ll grow a certain appreciation for the meaningful things that can occur as a result; whether that be through sacrifices we make for our families, or even stepping away from certain personal goals in order to achieve something far greater with others.
Each one of us likely faces continuous challenges, day in, day out; but if we accept these tests with an intensely willful spirit, then maybe that’s the key to conquering the sensitive equalibriam of life.
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